Intersections with Phil Allen, Jr.

Episode: 021 “Unknownland: Blackness as the ‘In-Between’”

Airdate: March 1, 2021

Length: 11:13

Guests: N/A

In this episode Phil takes a different approach. As Black History Month closes and March is the recognition and celebration of Women’s History, Phil shares a poem that is both a tribute to Black History and his mother. “Unknownland” is a piece that is born out of reflection on what it means to be black in America. It’s about living in a perpetual sense of liminality—in-between space; space of transition. How this poem intersects with Women’s History Month is that poetry has opened up so many doors (preaching, teaching, writing, etc.) for Phil and his mother was the main inspiration for him believing he could be a poet when he was a young child. Women’s History Month begins with the history of his mom as the central figure and influence on his life. This poem is his mother’s fruit.

Here is an excerpt of “Unknownland”:

“… The camera captures the violent “in-between” the “Unknownland”

The space between Gethsemane and Calvary

Between the cross and the tomb

Between death and life

In this purgatorial real estate  

That black bodies inhabit

Dignity is stripped because blackness has been deemed invalid

The iPhone or the Android records the annihilation in real time

Paused by the invisible virus to be still and witness the

Manifestation of the visible one

Kneeling in full worship posture

Sacrificing black life once again to white ideological gods

What are the odds we are traumatized?...”

Phil asks that you take time to reflect on the lines, phrases, and words in this poem and ask yourself what they might mean to you. What could it possibly mean to feel as though being Black is an “in-between” space? What could an “in-between” space be for your own life?

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Phil Allen, Jr. is a Los Angeles-based pastor, social justice activist, filmmaker and author. Allen’s book Open Wounds explores the murder of Nate Allen—Phil Allen’s grandfather—in the Jim Crow era of South Carolina and how that traumatic event resonated through generations of his family. Open Wounds – which is based on the Allen-produced documentary of the same name – was published on February 9, 2021. Allen is a Ph.D. student studying Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.